Elizabeth Bowen "The Demon Lover"

Elizabeth Bowen "The Demon Lover"

In Elizabeth Bowen’s, The Demon Lover, the story revolves around the central character Mrs. Drover. As the reader finishes the story it is unclear whether she was abducted by the devil, her deceased fiancÐ"©, or she was in the midst of a war time induced hallucination. In order to decipher the events the reader must interrupt the clues concerning the letter, Mrs. Drover’s flashback to World War I, and determine who the taxi cab driver was. It is my impression that there was substantial evidence given by Bowen to suggest that it was Mrs. Drover’s mental status that shaped the world she was experiencing. Through the analysis of events and Mrs. Drover’s mood and behavior I will prove that she was under the influence of a wartime hallucination and was not abducted by a supernatural being.

The time and setting of this story must not be overlooked. They shape the stressful atmosphere that aid in the manifestation of Mrs. Drover’s hallucination. Bowen describes London in a state of disrepair covered by a rainy and overcast gloominess. The fact that the story takes place in London during World War II is significant since during those trying times peoples feared for their lives while the Germans’ nightly bombings were unrelenting. It was this fear that forced the Drover’s to move their family to the country. The story begins with a woman traveling alone through a war zone accenting on the heighten feelings of fear within Mrs. Drover.

Mrs. Drover’s demeanor is slowly and carefully presented to the reader. Mrs. Drover admits to being untrusting and suspicious of her caretaker without any justification lent. This trait is commonly linked to people with paranoia. Bowen then describes Mrs. Drover as a “characterless” woman whose typical expression is one of controlled worry. Her state of mind is anxious, mentioning the emotion twice under the context of her worrying about the state of her house. Bowen then describes that she felt perplexed when she was forced to reminisce about her former life. The beginning of her paranoia starts with confusion. Mrs. Drover’s former life can be ascertained as being ostentatious through the description of her furniture. The contrast between her stressful wartime life and her carefree prewar life has clearly been taxing her mentally. It is only after the introduction of the catalysts of anxiety and confusion does she hallucinate about the letter in order to escape her painful reality.

In reference to the letter Mrs. Drover constantly attempts to explain one clear reason why the letter should even be there. The post office was redirecting her mail, and her caretaker was on vacation. Even if he wasn’t on vacation it was uncharacteristic of him to leave a letter at the house since he was not expecting her to be back in London that day. Another odd occurrence was that the door remained locked but the letter was on top of a table. Along with its questionable entrance is the letters vagueness that allows Mrs. Drover to interrupt it however she sees fit. Mrs. Drover accepts the possibility that the letters origins were supernatural and even entertains the idea that she was in fact “in a mood”, imagining the letter being there at all. The absurdity in that way of thinking marks her loss of the ability to rationalize reasonably. The fact that she is alone in this trip, lends favor to the idea that the letter remains a hallucination since its existence could not be verified by any one other than Mrs. Drover.

Mrs. Drover’s current anxiousness was later traced back through the use of a flashback. After the departure of her fiancÐ"©Ð²Ð‚™ during World War I, Mrs. Drover is depicted as feeling dislocated from society. Mrs. Drover’s recollection is that she made an “unnatural promise” that “divided her from the rest of mankind”. Her feelings of social isolation, despair, and loneliness suggest a developing chronic mental illness. Mrs. Drover uses the flashback as a